Frank’s unsent love letters [FOUND at the Internet Garage]

This Friday, I introduce to you a man named Frank. Of all my Found items from the IG, his are the most plentiful, interesting, and deep. This is because Frank unfortunately left his leather-bound travel journal behind. When I saw it and realized what it was, I left it untouched in the Drawer of Random Crap for a whole week, hoping he would come back in to claim it. My leather-bound journal is one of my most sacred possessions, and from one journal-author to the next I wanted to keep it safe for him. After the week passed and the journal remained, I opened it up to look for contact information so I could return it to him. There was no email address listed so I tried looking him up on Google but found nothing. I called a few stray numbers I found in there trying to locate him, but none of them knew a Frank and I found it difficult to describe him effectively, only having his inner most thoughts and feelings to describe him by. And then, I did what any IG staffer bored on a 10-hour Saturday shift would do, and read the entire thing…. and scanned some pages.

This is one of my favorite things in Frank’s journal: The poignant reminder of how we come to live with regrets because of fearful inaction. After four pages of attempts that began “Catherine I –” followed by lines of text scribbled out, Frank finally managed to get these thoughts onto paper:

Oh, Frank. If only you would have had Internets sooner! I hope that when you came to the Internet Garage, it was so that you could email Catherine. There was also this:

Ah, bittersweet regrets… Some of you may be thinking that I have crossed some kind of line by publishing Frank’s private thoughts, but I think he would have wanted it this way. If I ever lost my journal, I would hope that someone would find my thoughts interesting enough to publish, even if that publication was only some girl’s insignificant web log…